Réal Jacob and Hatim Fassi-Fihri Win the First Award in Leadership Case Writing

The Pierre-Péladeau Chair of Leadership rewarded Réal Jacob, professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Hatim Fassi-Fihri, PhD student at HEC Montréal, for excellence in writing the case ‘Youth Fusion’.

Youth Fusion

The case tells the historical evolution of Youth Fusion, a social innovation in the field of academic perseverance launched in 2009 by Gabriel Bran Lopez. Youth Fusion is a non-profit organization whose mission is to counter the drop-out by implementing and supporting stimulating, innovative and practical pedagogical projects in order to motivate at-risk youth to surpass themselves and become more involved in their academic success.

After summarizing the problem of dropping out of school in Quebec, the case presents the evolution of this NPO, from the emergence of the idea, carried and promulgated by a social entrepreneur, to its implementation, carried by a network of individual and organizational actors. Youth Fusion is presented as a social innovation that takes the form of an original and effective network design in the universe of initiatives in the field of perseverance.

The case was written in order to highlight the challenges associated with launching and developing an NPO by focusing on the role of the leader, his ability to develop and mobilize four forms of intangible capital and how to organize network.